I suggest a campaign about ...

HS2 - High Speed Rail Link. We dont need to spend £160m per mile

Costing over £160m per mile, the proposed HS2 High Speed Rail Link will not only help further bankrupt our country but will slash and scar our countryside, leaving a permanent reminder to our children of politics gone mad and a dynasty of greed of gargantuan proportions.

I agree with the comments below - to spend such a vast sum of money on HS2 is obscene, made even more so when you consider the plethera of cuts being made at a national and local level to the extent that some essential services may never be recovered. £160 million per mile??? This could have offset the costs of keeping at least some of the services such as Community Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Youth Clubs, Charities, Libraries etc. etc. etc. still providing their service. Shame on you...

Then there is the issue of not giving a damn about our countryside...how foolhardy and reckless can you be? Belittling the designations of SSSis and National Nature Reserves and running roughshod through OUR landscapes and for what..?? Nine minutes (or whatever) off the length of a journey to Fat Cat London. Haven't you heard? Britain is the poor man of Europe when it comes to nature protection and forest cover. If you didn't know this, then you shouldn't be in a position to squander our beautiful land. If you did know this, then there is something wrong in the state...
Shame on you again...

Even thinking about spending this amount of our money on a project that will benefit a tiny number of business men while ruining vast swathes of the countryside show how out of touch the government is.

This government must continue to listen to the people who live in this country and not just work here or who want to plunder our green and pleasant land. The SSSI, scheduled monuments, ANOBs, listed buidlings and ancient woodlands must be protected from those whose interests are purely the money in their bank accounts and the power that they want to have over our lives.

StopHS2 campaigners have been successful in pursuading Parliament to hold a debate on the HS2 project. It will take place on Thursday 13th October. Please can you now ask your local MP to speak on your behalf in the debate. The original Stop Hs2 petition has reached over 100,00 signatures via online and paper votes, the Govt interestingly now have their own new online petition. STOP HS2 petition has reached over 100k signatures via online and paper votes. Please add your name also to this new Govt petition via http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/353

Pleae wake up folks - not only will the HS2 from London to Birmingham cost us 1000-1700,-- (per household) extra on tax a year, it doesnt stop anywhere along the route and all the laws to protect areas of outstanding beauty, sites of special scientific interest, ancient woodlands, natural habitats etc. would be abolished! Think of the long-term effect; that would then give the Government the right to build anything anywhere!! Is that what we really want? Wouldnt it be better to invest money in the existing rails?

This is the biggest waste of taxpayer's hard earned money that has ever been proposed. It is not cost effective for the supposed savings in time it will bring. The money should be spent on increasing the police numbers, and public services such as the NHS. There are too many public services crying out for help with funding, and that would be money much better spent. As a taxpayer, I want to have a choice. I choose to not support HS2.

I work for the NHS in Spinal injury and we are always battling to get patients what they need from an ever decreasing budget. How can our govenrment think that spending £33 billion on a railway we don't need is right????

While understanding we need to build infrastructure for the future health/growth of Britain, it seems fundamentally wrong to a) spend the vast sums of money and b) cause the environmental damage when there is no robust business case for it in the first place!

The recent Oxera review suggests that HS2 will not help the regions and will increase the North-South divide, based on experience in other countries. The business case is weak at best. Anyone who has walked in the Chilterns will appreciate the special beauty of this area. The loss of historic buildings and beautiful countryside if this scheme goes ahead would be a tragedy and would benefit few. Surely it cannot be justified on cost benefits or environmental grounds?

The link is a dreadful waste of public money, especially at a time of major economic distress. The existing railway network is underinvested and when the money is available it should be spent on improving what we already have. There is already sufficient capacity to meet future needs and this can be improved through further investment. HS2 is not something that the public have ever asked for or voted in favour of. It has been dreamt up by politicians and introduced to the public quite suddenly through the back door. It will cause incredible long term disruption to the areas in proximity of the route and will ultimately scar the landscape and create noise pollution in those areas. Apart from the obvious environmental impact of wrecking areas of outstanding natural beauty this project would result in more vehicles on the road during the rail distruption (e.g. when Euston station is rebuilt) and ultimately encourage more unnecessary travelling on half empty trains. Such projects (e.g. HS1)always overrun on timetable and cost, and if it is allowed to begin we are signing up to an open ended timetable of disruption to areas on the route and a financial black hole.

This project will cause more misery and despair to the people living on the proposed route than the recent riots and vandalism has to the people of Tottenham, Croydon. Manchester. West Midlands etc.
The difference is that the hurt will be permanent, the torture and financial hardship will be inflicted over many years, the damage is not covered by insurance and compensation will be restricted and the lives of future generations as well as current ones will be blighted. We all feel for the small number of people in Tottenham who have lost their homes and businesses. What about the hundreds/thousands living between London and Birmingham who will lose theirs.

And why. It won't ease the current rail congestion and surely in 10 to 50 years time, it will seem absurd to shunt large tonnages of people around the country. Fixed rail transport is inflexible. The rail system of the 1840s did provide a flexible network for those days - the alternative was horse and cart, canal boat or walking.The existing system provides a flexible network for commuters,already links in with existing road an public transport systems. Capacity could be increased over 10 years with appropriate thinking..

Our current MPs and the Powers that be really cannot perceive the future and its needs and the decision making process is infested with vested interests from politicians seeking votes to Transport Ministries and Big Business trying to increase their self importance.

HST is less relevant than a high speed horse and cart. We already have those, they are called motor cars. There is infinite scope for improvement and they provide the flexibility and individuality that people need.

Stand back and think about Birmingham. It needs to be downsized, the best parts retained and the worst converted back to green fields. There is ample scope and need to develop the economies of the East Coast and Scotland. Birmingham is and has always been a transport and industrial bottleneck. That is why the motorway system is designed to avoid it.

A high speed train link to Birmingham, at best would have no economic effect and at worst would prolong an economic disaster.

Ask yourself, how many times in your life have you been to Birmingham? Do you have a compelling need to go there now.Do you really want to go there at 200MPH.

We needed high speed trains in the 60s. Now it is too late: the world has moved on by the time this would be in service, we would no longer need it. The future is local, carbon-neutral and internet-based. We can ill afford this vanity project either as a nation or as users of the service.

It will cost a colossal amount of money (even without the inevitable overruns) and the benefits are tenuous at best estimated over a period of 60 years! There will be huge destruction to an area of outstanding natural beauty and whole villages will be affected. There is already a perfectly good line between Birmingham and London.

Closing the north south divide is an admirable objective and therefore couldn't the project be approached the other way round and the lines between Scotland and the North and Birmingham built first? This would put some money into those economies that need it most at the moment. The lines do not appear to create as much disruption to local communities or the environment and means that the benefits of the line can be properly tested before building the destructive London Birmingham line.